Thursday, March 2, 2017

No Rat's Ass on the Menu this Week

The Wednesday night gaming group I am with hasn't played for almost a month. +Chris C. and I came up with a contingency plan. Should the other guys need to bail we would do some one-on-one gaming. Chris tinkering with various systems lately and decided to run an OD&D game, those three little brown books that started it all.

Chris directed me to a site, totalpartykill. Click on the link and it automatically generates a character for you. It's great.

This week Chris and I were alone again, he'd made a cool adventure using his Ravensburgh background and off we went. I went to the total party kill site and generated my main guy, an elf names Boneswa and his two henchmen, a cleric called Brother Reginald and a fighter called Corder. After a short time tweaking equipment and going over his houserules we were ready to begin.

We sat in the Surly Tavern when an official clerical (the kind with stamps, not spells) type man entered with a batch of posters, a hammer, and a tiny bag of nails. After the poster was secured to the wall Boneswa read the announcement.

Being as the three of us were sharing a bowl of porridge, with what we hoped were raisins included, our money was depleted. Big Willie the bartender and owner, while a generous man who would give us credit, suggested it might be a good idea for us to get a jump on this before the others started reaping the goblin hands.

The goblins were by the black tower. We'd heard that there orcs there also there, giant rats were good eating and there were zombies in the NE of 1st level of the dungeon. Oh and a tunnel that would take you to hell. If we didn't get any goblin hands we would need to put that second rumor to the test.

The journey there was a few hours, uneventful. We went around the briars to minimize our risk of running into something unprofitable.

Entering the Black Tower

There was little remaining of the above ground ruins of the tower. Little more than a broken structure that has forgotten to fall. There were stairs and down we went. We explored a short while and we came upon some giant rats. One of the rats proved particularly difficult. He was a tough little bastard.

What we thought we fought.

What we actually fought.

What we are telling others we fought.

Opening Doors

Chris has this rule about opening the door. One person can open a door on a roll of a 1 or 2. Two people opening the door have a 4 in 6 chance. Three people automatic, but lose initiative if something is on the other side of the door. I tried to open the door with two people so I didn't lose the initiative. But I believe I failed everytime, 4 in 6 chance, still couldn't do it. So I had to opt to use all three folks because of the wandering monsters came though. More of these guys...

See what I did there?

No goblins and I went in the wrong direction for the zombies. Just rats. I guess we were going to test out that rumor about them tasting good.

No Rat's Ass on the Menu this Week
Then we came across a room with a coffer on a pedestal. Saw grooves on the floor. We figured out it was a pit and the pendulum trap, but didn't have the proper equipment to stop it. Instead Corder stayed away from the grooves to grab the coffer. He set off the trap, but both blades barely missed. We avoided the piss soaked floor stone after that. Inside the coffer was 40gp and 400sp. Relief, we wouldn't need to eat the ass out of a rat.

I think we encounter one or two more rats on the ways out. Avoided an encounter of marching things. We heard marching and took evasive action. We explored a few other section, not much was found except stained trousers, a cauldron, and a barrel of rotten vegetables.

With two of us wounded we decided to get out of the dungeon, take what we had and get back to town to heal. We'd gained enough money to live another week or two. Get us back in top shape and head out again.

The Map
Chris used an interesting style of map. Minimalist in style. It was a grid map, but each square was a room or hallway. He was able to map a fairly large dungeon in a short amount of time. I put it here that I hope Chris does a post about this because I thought it worked well.

I like one-on-one games. Haven't played in one for a while. Chris was efficient with his game prep and adventure development. And to play OD&D was interesting. The game has a lot of little weird quirks to it.

Q1: Did you get the porridge with rabbit raisins to go? Q2: Where did you find so many pictures of my ex-wife? I always like one-on-ones to eliminate arguing and having to find a consensus before smashing the door or gutting the last goblin (he didn't know anything anyway). My last o-o-o was a ratter too. Great stuff. Thanks for the game journal.